Is it only the number that is fixed or is it also the deities that are fixed? Greek and Romans often just equated foreign deities with one of their own, essentially keeping the number of deities fixes, IIRC.

Is it only the number that is fixed or is it also the deities that are fixed? Greek and Romans often just equated foreign deities with one of their own, essentially keeping the number of deities fixes, IIRC.

I'd say the major difference there is that in Greek and Roman mythology the number of deities (including personifications and local gods), so equating a foreign deity with their own was a lot easier. In limited polytheistic religions, with a handful of gods and no more, while you can equate some foreign gods with your own, there's a limit. Eventually you'd have to do one of two things, I suppose, if you wanted to include more foreign deities within your own pantheon, a) just include them as minor deities or spirits, working on behalf of the core deities (so, for example, you might pray to one of the core 12 to encourage one of the lesser gods to do something), or b) work them in as avatars of existing deities, forms which they have taken at various times and in various locations when presenting themselves to mortals.

You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.

Are there examples of polytheistic religions where the number of deities is fixed? I know the Game of Thrones religion is like that, but any real-life examples?

This is how I view the Mantian religion: it consists of a pantheon of 12 deities, six gods and six goddesses, but the number is very much fixed. The 12 correspond to the 12 months of the year as well as the 12 hours on a clock; there could never be more or any less. But the polytheistic religions I know about always have hundreds or thousands and can incorporate new gods easily; this religion would never be able to do that.

I'm not aware of any such religion, and I find it hard to conceive of.

There are arguably some religions with two deities, and I wouldn't be surprised if maybe there were three. Perhaps four, if it's two couples? These work basically as a variation on monotheism - instead of one universal principle there are two, and perhaps you have a union to give a third.

But once you've got more gods than that, I think you're seeing deities in a totally different way - not as universal principles, but as animating forces associated with particular parts of the world, in which case it becomes hard to imagine a reason why there'd be a finite and small number of them, given the immense complexity of the universe.

Likewise, it's important to note that polytheism doesn't actually work along "God of X", "Goddess of Y" grounds. They're just gods and goddesses - their specific interests add up or fall away over time, not always in particularly logical ways; for instance, in syncretising foreign deities, the Greeks and Romans were often as likely to work on the basis of personality, symbolism and family relationships, rather than on "portfolio".

I sort of see the Mantian religion as being a combination of both of those ideas you mention, Salmoneus. On one hand, it could be said that it's a variation on monotheism, considering that the 12 are inseparable, they only exist as long as they exist together, perhaps one interpretation is that there is really one deity but it has 12 "faces" or however you choose to label it. The deities are usually depicted in a circle or a wheel; neither one ranks above any of the others. On the other hand, the Mantians do associate particular parts of the world with each of them, allowing the "categories" that each deity represents (the categories are defined by sets of symbols, personality of the deity, etc.) to be so general as to potentially allow all things to be associated with one of them, no matter how loose the connection may be.

But to be honest, part of the reason there's a finite number is because Mantian religious texts say there's a finite number I'm not too concerned if this isn't entirely realistic. I was wondering if there may be a non-GoT parallel, and if there's not, that's okay. It's something I enjoy working on and I imagine I'll develop it more once I've developed the language more. At this point it's just more of a rough idea.

IIRC, the Faith of the Seven, at least officially, teaches of the existence of a single god with seven aspects (similar to the trinitarianism of Catholic monotheism that replaced the polytheism of various peoples in the British Isles). That is to say, the GoT version of "polytheism" seen in the New Gods (as opposed to the Old Gods still believed in by some, especially in the North) is actually just a slightly more "avatarry" version of Christianity.

You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.

I think I read about a religion in e Africa with precisely 16 gods, but these were 4 modes of 4 gods, who were themselves 4 modes of a single supreme deity, so they could be considered monotheistic.

The only thing I can find that might relate to this are the Orishas of the traditional Yoruba religion, with a hint of misrepresentation or misunderstanding. I've found sites online claiming there are only 16 Orishas that seem to deal largely with some kind of underlying mysticism to the universe ("new age" might sum it up), but anything delving into the Yoruba religion says that there are a lot more that 16 Orishas.

The Orishas, however, do appear to be somewhat like gods, but reflect some aspect of the world as created by a Supreme Being with three aspects (the creator, the ruler of Heaven and the ruler of Earth), so they seem to be almost like personifications or "wards" of some aspect of creation. They seem to number in the hundreds, again, however, although there seems to be a core number of around one or two dozen.

You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.

I sort of see the Mantian religion as being a combination of both of those ideas you mention, Salmoneus. On one hand, it could be said that it's a variation on monotheism, considering that the 12 are inseparable, they only exist as long as they exist together, perhaps one interpretation is that there is really one deity but it has 12 "faces" or however you choose to label it. The deities are usually depicted in a circle or a wheel; neither one ranks above any of the others. On the other hand, the Mantians do associate particular parts of the world with each of them, allowing the "categories" that each deity represents (the categories are defined by sets of symbols, personality of the deity, etc.) to be so general as to potentially allow all things to be associated with one of them, no matter how loose the connection may be.

But to be honest, part of the reason there's a finite number is because Mantian religious texts say there's a finite number I'm not too concerned if this isn't entirely realistic. I was wondering if there may be a non-GoT parallel, and if there's not, that's okay. It's something I enjoy working on and I imagine I'll develop it more once I've developed the language more. At this point it's just more of a rough idea.

Oh, there are COUNTLESS non-GOT parallels. C.f. almost every fantasy novel published between 1954 and 2000 (at least) (or, at least, after 1977). The ASOIAF version is effectively an homage, even maybe a parody, of one of the most common tropes of the genre.

Why is this? In part, due to D&D and the 'sourcebook' mentality, in which there are only so many pages to spend on religion so it needs to be both comprehensive and finite in extent. And in part due to the Silmarillion and the limited number of the Valar, which in turn is also partly convenience and partly Christianity, and partly Greek. This 'polytheism' is probably more Christian than pagan: it mirrors both the Biblical division of the world into dominions (eg the days of genesis) and the mathematical calculations of the sizes of the various orders of angels and their mystical significance (eg the four named archangels match the four evangelists) - but of course even angelology and demonology are highly variable, and not in any way codified.

The system is also frequently used by New Age peoople - partly for simplicity, and perhaps partly due to influence from D&D.

In real life, it's hard to maintain a system like that. People tend to only care about their own god, so it's hard to have a single body willing to burn people at the stake for making errors regarding the general metadeity issues - and without a lot of burning at the stake, it's inevitable that someone's favourite foreign god, or hero, or aspect of a god, will eventually get elevated, while the little-known gods get forgotten.

Ancient Rome, for instance, was a powerful Empire in which the state religion had the full support of the state, and its state religion imposed worship of the three great deities: Mars, Jupiter... and Quirinus. Whoever he was. Seriously, even the Romans had forgotten who half of their gods were. The three major gods (Mars, Jupiter, and Quirinus) were backed up with the twelve minor gods: Carmentis, Ceres, Falacer, Flora, Furrina, Palatua, Pluto, Pomona, Portunus, Vulcan, Volturnus, and someone else the Romans had forgotten the name of. Lesser deities who were still notable enough to have their own festivals in the calendar included Cardea, Anna Perenna, Maia, Mater Matuta, Summanus, Consus and Angerona (who may or may not be the same as Feronia). Consus actually had two major festivals, which pales before Vediovis, who had THREE festivals! Yet even the Romans themselves had in many cases forgotten who the hell some of these people were, and had raised up an entirely new pantheon in the interim.

That said, the Romans did recognise the 'twelve major gods' in other functions, borrowed from the greeks (Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Vesta, Mercury, and Ceres.) Apparently the idea of the twelve deities goes back to the Hittites, at least... but evidently at no point was anybody really able to fix twelves specific deities. Is Vesta, for instance, really more important than Orcus?

I suppose one thing worth pointing out here is that polytheism tends to believe that gods have characters (otherwise, what stops them being the same?). And for someone to have character, they have to have relationships. In particular, gods can't be powerful unless they have power over other people. So once you introduce twelve gods, you need to introduce a background cast of characters for them to have adventures with - servants, children, parents, lovers, rivals. So there tends to be mythology-inflation...

Something to throw out there: if the gods objectively and uncontroversially exist--that is, if they routinely and obviously interact with and speak to people--then only worshipping twelve gods makes perfect sense; if you tried to worship someone else (or failed to worship one of the twelve), they could show up in person and smack you around.

I am planning to draw a map of my con-continent, and I am struggling to determine the climate of it's northeastern region. Here is a quick sketch:

It is basically a slightly larger, Rockies-less North America, with a large but narrow island to the east. I wonder, though, what effect that subcontinent (itself rather mountainous) and the resulting mountain range that I added to the northeastern coast have on the climate - the region that otherwise corresponds to central and eastern Canada is blocked from all but the northern ocean by substantially high mountains. Would the rain shadow be enough to make it a cold steppe, or even a desert? The subcontinent is also bothering me - the closest equivalent I have found is southern Argentina, which is similarly bordered by the Andes to the west.

The climate is supposed to be warm enough for there not to be an ice cap (yet... ).

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A linguistics enthusiast who would like to make a conlang, but can't decide what to call what.

I am planning to draw a map of my con-continent, and I am struggling to determine the climate of it's northeastern region. Here is a quick sketch:

It is basically a slightly larger, Rockies-less North America, with a large but narrow island to the east. I wonder, though, what effect that subcontinent (itself rather mountainous) and the resulting mountain range that I added to the northeastern coast have on the climate - the region that otherwise corresponds to central and eastern Canada is blocked from all but the northern ocean by substantially high mountains. Would the rain shadow be enough to make it a cold steppe, or even a desert? The subcontinent is also bothering me - the closest equivalent I have found is southern Argentina, which is similarly bordered by the Andes to the west.

The climate is supposed to be warm enough for there not to be an ice cap (yet... ).

It would easier to comment if you had a picture showing the degrees of latitude in a straight line. The scale also makes it a bit confusing. I'm also not sure which you're referring to as the subcontinent.

Anyway, assuming the world is mostly like earth (but a bit warmer):

East of the 'rather high mountains' will probably be very arid - the Westerlies are blocked creating a rain shadow and no moisture can come from the east either, and any winds would have lost most moisture by the time they reach the interior. The northern half between the two ranges will be steppe/cold desert, transitioning into hot desert.

The NE coast will be similar to NE China - very arid cold winters, but there will probably be rain in summer.

West coast: The northern half will be oceanic, generally mild and wet, getting drier inland. Around 30-45 degrees along the west coast will be Mediterranean. There will almost certainly be a hot desert below this, maybe even reaching close to the eastern coast. Along the south-western side of the mountain range might be semi arid.

The tropics and equator region will be semi-arid transitioning into savannah and rainforest around the equator (unless there is a significant monsoon influence).

A hotter world might mean more rain, so perhaps the desert will be less than expected, with an extended semi-arid area.

Thank you for your comment. I apologize for the bad quality of the map - here is a better one.

Assuming an Earth-sized planet, the continent should stretch from a bit below the equator to a bit above the northern polar circle, and about the same distance from west to east at it's widest point - imagine a mirrored, re-positioned Africa (though the topography is obviously different). The subcontinent is the region east of the Very tall mountains.

Concerning ocean currents, there is enough space on all sides for them to encircle the continent. I imagined a warm current flowing northwards along the eastern coast, which would make it a bit wetter than the interior.

The planet at the moment has an axial tilt somewhat larger than Earth, I would guess 25 to 27 degrees, which would make the equator, the northern tropic and the northern polar circle at 0, 27 and 63 degrees respectively. I've read that the accompanying increase in seasonal variation might prevent an ice cap from forming because more snow would melt during the summer.

Edit: Added a more detailed map.

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A linguistics enthusiast who would like to make a conlang, but can't decide what to call what.

Nope! Feel free to present it however you like. Sometimes people start with an overview of their world, sometimes they start with maps, sometimes they give us short stories or other bits of prose. Anything is perfectly fine!

I want to make it apparent the setting i'm doing is tribal and primitive but i don't think it's...inoffensive. the thing is my conpeople have technology fueled by magic and cobbled together tree bark, stone, leaves, grass blades.

Rotational periods? Shouldn't really matter, although over time the tidal forces are going to change the rotational periods. If they're not tidally locked, then they're probably recent captures.

If they are tidally locked, and those are also the synodic periods, then the answer is very much "it depends". How big are they, and how massive? How massive is the Earth-sized planet?

"Stable" is also complicated. Mto, for instance, has a more massive outer moon and a less massive inner moon, and while it appears stable when I do simulations, the inner moon is relatively erratic in its orbit due to the gravitational influence of the outer moons. And over what time period must it be stable? A hundred years? A million years?

Ultimately, the only real way to answer that question is to plug the numbers into a simulator and set it to run and see what happens.

Though, if the question is, are there values of mass of the three moons that would give them those synodic periods relative to a planet of roughly Earth's mass, then the question is "yes, of course". Mind, they might just be the size of asteroids (cf. Mars' moons), but it's doable.

(I'm also glossing over the fact that I'm not sure what you mean by "day". Are you referring to a mean Earth solar day (that is, about 86400 seconds), or a day relative to this planet (and then, solar day or synodic day, but you probably want mean solar day), at which point the question is what's the length of time of the planet's day, because that also affects the math)

((Sorry. It's a quick question, but it's not a quick answer. Like many things in conworlding))

I'm more or less with Axiem on this one. The relative orbital periods follow the "close to an integer ratio" that seems to come up a lot with this sort of thing (orbital resonance?), and as long as the moons aren't close enough to be within the planet's Roche limit, then the actual absolute orbital periods should be fine too. After that, it might be down to the masses of the individual moons and how they affect each other. I think you should be able to work out their individual gravitational attraction to each other body individually at a given time (say, inner moon to planet vs. inner moon to mid moon vs. mid moon to planet, etc.), and then I guess if the differences look too big (so, I guess one moon is gravitationally affecting the other too moons more than the other way around) you might just have to lower the mass of the larger moon. I just fudged my numbers when I came up with Yantas' two moons though. Got a mass that gave the right orbital periods, then just left it at that

You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.